U.S. Senate Sets Marcellus Hearing for Charleston
Charleston Gazette
8 November 2011
By Ken Ward Jr.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A U.S. Senate committee has scheduled a field
hearing in Charleston next week to hear testimony about Marcellus
Shale natural gas drilling in West Virginia.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing is
scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday at the Robert C. Byrd Federal
Courthouse.
A committee spokesman said that Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., called
for the hearing and is likely to be the only committee member to
attend.
A committee schedule said, "The purpose of the hearing is to
examine Marcellus Shale Gas development and production in West
Virginia."
A list of scheduled witnesses and more specific topics to be
addressed had not yet been made available on Tuesday.
"We are waiting to get some of those details locked in," said
Emily Bittner, a spokeswoman for Manchin.
Manchin has been promoting expanded drilling of the vast natural
gas resources in the Marcellus Shale, touting that gas as a huge
job creator and a tool in reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
Two weeks ago, in a major speech in Morgantown, Manchin also
criticized efforts by the Obama administration's Environmental
Protection Agency to increase federal regulation of natural gas
drilling. While noting that West Virginia lawmakers had "not yet
reached consensus on how we can best balance the potential of the
Marcellus Shale with the concerns that residents have raised about
its environmental effect," Manchin said such matters should be
left to the states.
"Not only is this administration ignoring the fact that coal built
this nation -- and provides nearly half of our electricity -- they
are missing the tremendous potential of the shale resources in
West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and the rest of the region,"
Manchin said. "They're so determined to demonize fossil fuels that
they ignore the vast, untapped resources waiting to be developed
right here at home, which could reduce this nation's dependence on
foreign oil and create good-paying, American jobs."
Actually, the Obama administration's energy blueprint calls for
"encouraging the exploration of new frontiers of production and of
new ways to safely make use of domestic assets like our vast
reserves of natural gas."
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson
has said her agency's efforts to better regulate air and water
pollution are aimed at "allowing continued, responsible growth in
U.S. oil and natural gas production."
A Department of Energy advisory committee reported in August that
shale-gas reserves like the Marcellus have "enormous potential to
provide economic and environmental benefits for the country.
"Shale gas is a widely distributed resource in North America that
can be relatively cheaply produced, creating jobs across the
country," the committee said. "Natural gas -- if properly produced
and transported -- also offers climate change advantages because
of its low carbon content compared to coal."
During a hearing last month on that DOE advisory panel report,
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman,
D-N.M., said that expanded natural gas drilling "comes with a
responsibility to address environmental concerns as well as human
health and safety issues."
Bingaman also noted recent scientific research questioning whether
natural gas is really that big of an improvement over coal in
terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
"Some experts have claimed that fugitive emissions from natural
gas extraction are routinely high enough that switching to natural
gas could actually be worse than continuing to use coal, while
many other experts have disputed these claims," Bingaman said. "If
natural gas is to be used as a lower-carbon alternative to other
fossil fuels, the issue of fugitive emissions is one that we must
quantify, understand more fully, and address appropriately."
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1702.